The First Sunday of Lent recounts the Forty Days our Lord spent in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. From this we get the rationale for the forty days of Lenten discipline. The Second Sunday recounts the Transfiguration of the Lord. Here is the rationale for holy worship, for we join Peter and James and John prostrate before the majesty of God, and all of Lent is training in how to offer ourselves in devotion.

We must do our best to improve our acts of worship. This was stated very well in a recent interview with Archbishop Ranjith Patabendige, the Sri Lankan prelate who now is secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship. As Lent is a time for honesty, the Archbishop has called for a candid acknowledgement that liturgical changes since Vatican II have not achieved expected goals of the Fathers of the Council. "Undoubtedly there have been positive results . . . but the negative effects seem to have been greater, causing much disorientation in our ranks."

The Archbishop says that Pope Benedict XVI is fully aware of the crisis in the liturgy, and has long called attention to it in his many books and essays. It is high time "with the help of the Lord to make the necessary corrections."

As to whether the Pope will encourage use of the older Latin Mass (the new, or "Novus Ordo," Mass has always been permitted in Latin), he said that this is a possibility but they are not mutually exclusive. "If the Holy Father so desires, both could co-exist…. But in the interaction of the two Roman traditions, it is possible that the one may influence the other eventually." The fundamental challenge, said the Archbishop, is to stop "freewheeling" liturgical innovation and to recover the sense of the sacred. While the secularization of culture has diminished worship, the decline in Mass attendance also stems from liturgical abuses. "A deep crisis of faith coupled with a drive for meaningless liturgical experimentation and novelty have had their own impact in this matter."

I like to think of our parish church as a village church in the heart of the city. Since the city is New York and we have visitors from all over the world, the way we worship can be a model for others, provided we have a right model for ourselves. When I became Pastor, I determined to follow the authentic rubrics of the Holy See in shaping the way we worship. Much is to be done and the noble instructions of our new Pope will be an inestimable inspiration. The self-absorbed banality which has imposed a suburban mediocrity on the Church's vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem has deprived young and old alike of numinous worship. "Reform of the reform" requires honesty about past failures and joyful confidence in a recovery of that rare commodity often called common sense.

Fr. George W. Rutler